At the same time that I joined Fylde, I started a textile technology and business studies course at Salford Technical College and, not surprisingly, gravitated towards the college rugby team. I played in the back row alongside a former England Schoolboy, Richard Jazwinski, who was playing club rugby at Broughton Park. He was a very good player and went on to represent Lancashire, and, during that time, I played against Nigel Yates, who was a centre at Sale and went on to become a senior referee.
I graduated to the second team at Fylde and also made the move into the second row, but at the start of the following season it was felt that I was too small for the position in which I was later to make my name, so I was demoted back to the third team to learn how to prop. It was in that position that I made my first-team debut against Waterloo in November 1970, when the team were short, but I afterwards returned to the position I was to occupy for the remainder of my career and, a year later, had established myself in the first team.
The only time I was ever dropped by my club was at Christmas during that season, when Roger Uttley, who was studying at university in Newcastle and playing for Gosforth (now the Falcons), returned home for the holidays and was picked ahead of me for the Boxing Day game against our oldest rivals, Preston Grasshoppers. I wasn’t very happy to see this total stranger, to me anyway, suddenly walk in and take my spot, and I had a quiet chuckle to myself when ‘Hoppers’ won.
Looking back it is quite incredible how my playing career has interwoven with Roger’s over the years, our rivalry extending over a considerable time. When I started playing in the second row for Lancashire he was playing for Northumberland and was already an established international. I owe my England debut to Roger because I was called into the side when he had to pull out through injury. He also captained England ahead of me – I then took over the captaincy from him, only to lose it back again later. We were intense rivals, and I think we both felt more comfortable when I was fully established as captain and he came back into the national side in 1980 as a flanker. I had made my mark and the selectors weren’t going to bring Roger back as captain again. I think we always respected each other and we have been good mates ever since. Hilary and I thoroughly enjoy his company – and that of his wife Christine.
My elevation to the second row at Fylde had again only come about because they happened to be short in that position one day, but once in the engine room of the pack I never looked back. Having worked my way through to the first team, I made my senior debut at second row against New Brighton; a side that, like Fylde, was more of a force in those days. Certainly, the side I played in would beat the current Fylde team without too much difficulty. Brian Ashton was at scrum-half and he was a class player with a good understanding of the game, as has been proved since with his coaching success at Bath and with England. He currently has the vital task of looking after the country’s Academy players who are being groomed for the national side. He toured Australia with me in 1975 when he was really on top of his game and he would surely have been capped had he been able to stay Down Under, but he had to return home to be with his wife after she had miscarried the baby they were expecting. It is a tragedy that he never won his cap because he then went to live and play for a time in Italy and so was largely lost to us. When he finally returned it was to move into coaching, where he has played a considerable role in helping to change the way English backs play. He was not just a top player but is a bloody good bloke too and he is ideally suited for the development role he has taken on.
Another Fylde player who came close to representing his country during my playing days was wing Tony Richards. He and Brian were my regular travelling companions and Tony was Lancashire’s wing for many years, playing in England trials but without getting the call he wanted. Despite the passing years, I still see quite a bit of Tony because he is an enthusiastic worker for The Wooden Spoon Society, the rugby charity.
By the time I had established myself in Fylde’s first team I was starting to take the game very seriously and I did find it frustrating that not everyone in the side had the same approach to training and preparation. The difference in attitude became more apparent when I started playing for Lancashire. Suddenly I was in the company of players of international calibre and it didn’t take long to work out why. They were a dedicated and very single-minded bunch. Coming second best was not on their agenda and you never had to worry that anyone might be slacking on the field.
Still, Fylde had a reasonable fixture list, which provided me with the opportunity to play against powerful clubs, none stronger than Coventry in those days. They could almost field a side of internationals and when I picked up a match programme and saw the quality of the opposition I started at last to acquire real ambition. I remember playing against Moseley at The Reddings one day and their side included England half-backs Jan Webster and John Finlan, John White and Nigel Horton. On that occasion I had an excellent game against Nigel and decided that I rather liked the game of rugby union. He clearly had a long memory because, a year later, he smacked me at the first line-out and gave me a hard time generally. I was suddenly made aware that this rugby business wasn’t as easy as I had been starting to think it was.
Lancashire would run a series of trial games, and I played in these in the hope of breaking up the experienced second row combination of Mike Leadbetter and Richard Trickey. Both played in the North West Counties team that became the first English provincial side to beat the All Blacks – at Workington in 1972, during which I stood on the terraces to cheer them on. Mike did win an England cap but only in a 35–13 defeat against France at Stade Colombes in Paris. Under the scoring system then, that was quite a hefty thumping but England were hardly front-runners in the Five Nations during that particular era. There was a lot of chopping and changing and Mike wasn’t the only one-cap wonder by any means.
Richard was travelling reserve that day in Paris – they didn’t have replacements at that time and you were only there in case someone was taken ill before the game – and that’s as close as he got to a cap. That was a pity because he certainly deserved one – the old Sale warhorse taught me a great deal. He was limited in ability and not the purest of line-out jumpers but you couldn’t fault him for commitment. He was the fittest bloke I had ever encountered and was a massive influence on my career. At that time he was working as a sales representative and he would get up at 5 a.m. every day in order to get all his calls done by 2 p.m. so that he could devote the rest of the day to his punishing training routine. He could literally run all day and was ultra-competitive. The lads at Sale tell how, after he had retired and taken up coaching, he would race against them, claiming he had beaten them all, despite his age. On investigation, you discovered that he only won the last of a series of 50 sprints, by which time the players were hardly capable of standing, let around galloping 100 metres!
In 1972, just three days after the aforementioned victory over the All Blacks by the North West, I made my county debut alongside Richard because Mike Leadbetter had taken a knock in that game. Richard made more than 100 appearances for Lancashire and he soon handed out advice that ensured I didn’t get ideas above my station. In his gruff, forthright way, he told me, ‘Don’t try anything fancy. No sidestepping or selling dummies or trying to drop a goal – just stick your head up the prop’s backside, shove like a lunatic and contest every blasted line-out no matter where the ball is meant to be thrown. We’ve plenty of prima donnas in the backs to provide the tricks as long as we provide the ball. Just remember you are a donkey, and behave like one.’ As a young man who was already awe-stricken at finding himself in company with players like Fran Cotton and Tony Neary, not to mention ‘Tricks’, I nodded my head vigorously in accord. I certainly wasn’t prepared to try debating my role with him. The game was against Cumberland and Westmorland, now rebranded Cumbria, and I soon realised just how fit Richard was when I saw the speed with which he arrived at the breakdown ahead of me. I fared all right at the line-out but the pace of the game was a new experience and one and that made me determined to put in even more work on my fitness. Fortunately, I enjoyed training and even turned a corner of the factory into